"While there are obvious advantages to hierarchical bureaucracy, it has its costs, and these are today paralyzingly American education. The structure is getting in the way of children's learning." Sizer

"Eventually, hierarchical bureaucracy will be totally self-validating: virtually all teachers will be semicompetent, and thus nothing but top-down control will be tolerable. America is now well on the way to this state of affairs." Sizer

I only agree in part with this statement. I still object to the qualification of a student as a worker and what they do in school as "their work." School isn't a place for kids to go to work, it is a place for them to learn.

I had this experience recently visiting a school in north Minneapolis. It was the day after school was out so granted the building was somewhat more messy than it likely normally was. That said, I was shocked by a number of things. First, all flooring had been ripped up, you could see the glue in many places that held it down. It must have been left this way for quite a few years because of how it was worn according to how students would naturally have walked down those halls. Second, there were display cases outside of classrooms that obviously had not been updated in years as evidenced by layers of thick dust and the broken glass from fallen picture frames left untouched. Third, everything was battleship grey--everything. Fourth, walls and rails that had been painted displayed the kind of worn texture only something extremely well used receives, the kind of wear that allows you to see through the layers to the bone. To say this school was unattractive is an understatement. If anything the space resembled a prison. As I walked the halls of this middle school I kept thinking to myself, "Would such a place be tolerated in the wealthier suburbs?" Of course not.